The 2017 national sevens circuit kicks-off on Saturday, September 2, 2017 with the Driftwood 7s in Mombasa.

Kenya Rugby Union director of fixtures Moses Ndale told Raga House that the relegation and promotion rule remains the same.

This means teams that all the teams that fall off the Bowl quarters - to land in the shield semis are as good as relegated to Division 2 of the next event - unless they get an express invite from the next tournament host who have been handed the prerogative to invite any three teams of their choice.

This position is clarified in a rule book availed to all participating clubs by the Kenya Rugby Union.

"The last team in division 1 will be relegated to division 2 in the next tournament and the winner in division 2 will be promoted to division 1 as seed 13," says a part of the applicable rule

The rule means 12 teams - eight cup quarter finalists and bowl semi finalists are safely through to the next tournament.

"The host may invite 3 teams to the tournament and in such a case 14th, 15th and 16th ranked teams will get relegated to the 2nd Division." says the other part.

As an example of this application, all the teams that contested the Shield semis at the 2016 Kabeberi Sevens - Nondies, Catholic Monks, Mean Machine and eventual shield winner Western Bulls all went down to Driftwood Sevens Div 2.

Notwithstanding, Mean Machine survived the drop after Driftwood in 2016 hosts Mombasa RFC invited them to participate in the Division One